2010 BBM Tigers 75th Anniversary set

I mocked BBM's Hanshin Tigers 75th Anniversary set when it came out, but I ended up buying one anyway (mostly because I only had about 25 or so of the 2005 Tigers 70th Anniversary set...) Like all the other Anniversary sets that BBM's done over the last few years, it has 99 cards in it.

The first seven cards of the set are devoted to "Team History". The 2005 set also had a seven card "Team History" subset that had one card each devoted to one decade of the team's history. This set instead simply picks seven "Memorial Scenes" in Tigers history. Not completely sure what all of them are but I think there's one for first league championship in the 1937 Fall season, for the 1947 Championship, for Yutaka Enatsu's performance in one of the 1971 All Star games and the 1985 Nippon Series championship. There's also cards for some event in the 1972 season, something Tomoaki Kanemoto did in 2004 and something for Kyuji Fujikawa. Here's the card for the 1947 Champs (#02):


There are 65 cards for OB Tigers. As usual, this includes not only retired players, but former Tigers who are still playing for other teams (including Kei Igawa who's still playing in the States). I haven't done a thorough comparison of this group as compared to the group in the 2005 set but I'm pretty sure they overlap significantly. I'm not seeing any major omissions off hand. As seems to be par for the course with the Anniversary sets, there's an emphasis on more recent players - there's only maybe five or six cards of players who began their careers with the Tigers pre-1950. There's a couple unusual gaijin represented (Willie Kirkland and Hal Breeden) along with some more conventional choices (Randy Bass, Tom O'Malley and Jeffrey Williams). Otherwise, the selection includes pretty much who you'd expect - Enatsu, Masayuki Kakefu, Yoshio Yoshida, Akinonu Okada, Tsuyoshi Shinjyo, Masuru Kageura, Masaaki Koyama, Minoru Murayama, Taira Fujita and Koichi Tabuchi. Here are the cards for Takeshi Doigaki (#13), Yutaka Enatsu (#27), Willie Kirkland (#16), Tadashi Wakabayashi (#08) and Yoshiharu Wakana #40):






The set also contains 20 cards for the 2010 Tigers. Again, the selection is pretty much what you'd expect - Tomoaki Kanemoto, Kenji Johjima, Kyuji Fujikawa, Craig Brazell and Matt Murton all appear. One surprise - the set contains a card for Naoto Tsuru, who doesn't appear in either the 1st or 2nd Version sets this year. Here's the cards for Takahiro Arai (#86) and Tsuru (#80):



You've probably noticed that the fronts of the cards only have the player's name in Japanese, not in English. The backs are the same. So if you don't read Japanese, you may have issues in figuring out whose card you have.

The final subset is a seven card "Team Record Holder" subset. These cards (which are the only ones in the set to identify the player in English) show the career Tiger leaders in Games and Hits (Taira Fujita), Home Runs (Masayuki Kakefu), RBI (Fumio Fujimura), Stolen Bases (Norihiro Akahoshi), Games Pitched (Kazuyuki Yamamoto), Wins and ERA (Tadashi Wakabayashi) and Saves (Kyuji Fujikawa). Here's the Fujimura card (#95):

Card Of The Week December 5

Yakyu Baka posted a link to an article from Sanspo the other day discussing the rapid disappearance of links to the Showa Era in NPB. The last Nankai Hawks and the last Lotte Orion have now retired and there's just four former Yokohama Taiyo Whales left.

I was surprised to learn that there's one former Hankyu Brave left - Satoshi Nakajima, currently with the Fighters. Here's his card from the 2009 Orix 20th Anniversary set (#05):

2010 Award Winners

Last month, Kazuhiro Wada of the Dragons and Tsuyoshi Wada of the Hawks were named the MVPs of the Central and Pacific Leagues respectively (leading to many "Wada year!" headlines I'm sure - at least in any English language papers). Here's their 2010 BBM 1st Version cards (#060 and #294):



Kenta Maeda of the Carp was named winner of the Sawamura Award. His 2010 BBM 1st Version card (#148):


BBM had a subset in the 1st Version set for a couple of years called something like "Rookie Of The Year Preview" that I have mocked a couple of times for not actually including the eventual winner. This year, BBM changed the name to "Pick Up Hope" and, of course, finally scored a Rookie Of The Year - Hosayoshi Chono of the Giants. He has a "regular" card in the 1st Version set, but I'm going to show his "Pick Up Hope" card instead (#467):


For the third straight season, BBM did not include one of the Rookies of the Year in their 1st Version set. But bizarrely, they didn't include Ryo Sakakibara of the Fighters in the 2nd Version set either. But what I find really amusing is that Sakakibara appeared in LAST year's 1st Version "Rookie Of The Year Preview" subset (#481):


So BBM finally predicted a Rookie Of The Year in the subset, just one year early.

2010 BBM 2nd Version

Well, this is a bit late as the set's been out for a couple months, but I'm finally getting around to writing about it. It's a 334 card set that (as usual) is numbered as a continuation of the 1st Version set.

There are 216 "regular" player cards in the set - 18 per team which is the most any 2nd Version set has had since 2004. There's more of an emphasis on rookies this time around, however, as each team set includes 4-6 rookies. Here's some sample cards of Yoshiyuki Ishihara (#590), Eiichi Koyano (#629), Matt Murton (#578) and Ryoji Nakata (#545):





There's only a couple players this year who have a "regular" 2nd Version card but not a 1st Version card - Roberto Petagine (Hawks), Ken Nishimura (Tigers), Eric Stults (Carp), Go Kida (Buffaloes) and Shigeki Ushida (BayStars). In addition, Masayuki Hasegawa's card is with the Buffaloes while his 1st Version card was with the Carp. (Not sure why they did that rather than a 1st Version update) Here's the Petagine card (#665):


My only complaint with the cards is that in many cases the player's picture is very similar to their 1st Version card. For example, Jose Ortiz's 1st Version card shows him pointing to the sky when scoring a run. His 2nd Version card also shows him pointing to the sky when scoring a run, but he's in a black jersey instead of a white one. There's a couple players whose 1st and 2nd Version pictures were obviously taken at the same time, probably seconds apart. Here's the Ortiz cards (#311 and #667) and the cards of Shota Koseki (#286 and #655):



As always, there are several subsets in the set. There's a 36 card 1st Version Update subset featuring cards of players who either didn't appear in the 1st Version set for whatever reason or were traded early in the season (up to about May 17 it looks like). For the first time, BBM made sure that each team had an equal number of cards (3) in the update. Oddly enough, there's no card for the Swallows new manager Junji Ogawa, probably since he didn't take over until late May. Several of the updated players actually appeared in the 1st Version "Pickup Hope" subset but not in the regular set. Here are the cards of Freddie Bynum who signed with the Buffaloes too late to be in the 1st Version set (#763) and Yuji Yoshimi who was traded to the Marines from the BayStars in May (#760):



As usual, I can't figure out why BBM makes the decision to have a player appear on a "regular" 2nd Version card as opposed to a 1st Version update. What's the difference between Roberto Petagine ("regular" 2nd Version) and Freddie Bynum (1st Version update)?

One of the traditional 2nd Version insert sets (Opening Game Pitcher) has moved into the regular set this year. This 12 card subset (called "Opening Pitcher") features the Opening Day pitcher for each of the 12 teams. Here's Kenta Maeda of the Carp (#770):


There's a 12 card "Twin Gem" subset that shows two players from each team. Not sure if there's a theme behind the selection of the players on the cards. The Carp card has the two Maeda's - Kenta and Tomonori - and the Buffaloes has two Okada's - T-Okada and manager Akinori. My favorite is the one for the Eagles showing both Masahiro Tanaka and Hisashi Iwakuma (#785):


There's 12 team checklists which show a pitcher for each team batting. For a first, the player on the checklist is identified. Here's the Fighters team checklist featuring Yu Darvish (#796), one of four Yu Darvish cards in the set (Kenta Maeda also has four):


The traditional 10 card "Ceremonial First Pitch" subset featuring various celebrities throwing out the first pitch at games is also in the set. I'm bummed but not surprised that there's no Randy Johnson card. Instead, there's the usual collection of somewhat scantily clad model/singers (Haru, Kaori Nakamura, Nanao, Yumi Sugimoto, Maki Tamaru and Maomi Yuuki) plus actresses Sayaka Isoyama and 11 year old Nozomi Ohashi, speed skater Keiichiro Nagashima and figure skater Daisuke Takahashi. Here's model Yumi Sugimoto voting for the Buffaloes to change their team colors to include pink (#802):


The final subset in the set is the 36 card (3 per team) "Cross Stream" cross set subset for BBM's 20th Anniversary. The plan is that each team will have three cards each in the 1st Version, 2nd Version and Touch The Game sets and six cards in their team set for a total of 15 cards. I was under the impression that some of the cards would be for OB players, but the cards in the 1st and 2nd Versions have been for active ones only. The front of each card features the image of the player superimposed over water splashing. The back of the card features the same image of the player in it's original setting. The back of the card is also in a design that is very similar to the 1991 BBM design. Here's the front and back of Motonobu Tanishige (#CS020 - note that they are not numbered as part of the 2nd Version set):



Tanishige had appeared in the 1991 BBM set, so here's his card (#200) for comparision:

Yoshinori Tateyama of the Texas Rangers

The Texas Rangers today signed pitcher Yoshinori Tateyama, formerly of the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. Tateyama's BBM rookie card is #432 from the 1999 set. He's also card #10 in the Ovation Rising Stars serially numbered insert set from 2000, his only appearance in an Upper Deck set. As usual, I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think he's had any Calbee cards.

He appears in many but not all of the BBM 1st and 2nd Version sets since 2002. He only appeared in one All Star set (in 2000) and appears in three Nippon Series sets (2006, 2007 and 2009). As always, this is not meant to be a comprehensive list, merely some highlights.

Some sample cards:





From top to bottom, 2001 BBM #195, 2000 BBM All Stars #A56, 2006 BBM Nippon Series #S06 and 2005 BBM 1st Version #521 (Leader subset).

20 Years Of BBM Cards - Part 1

I thought it might be interesting to show an example card from each of BBM's regular sets from the last 20 years. This post will show 1991-2000 and I'll have another one (hopefully soon) showing 2001-2010.

1991 Norifumi Nishimura #98


1992 Motonobu Tanishige #93


1993 Koji Akiyama #39


1994 Ichiro Suzuki #403


1995 Hiromitsu Ochiai #50


1996 Hiroki Kokubo #420


1997 Tsuyoshi Shinjyo #437


1998 Norihiro Nakamura #211


1999 Michihiro Ogasawara #195


2000 Atsuya Furuta #230

Card Of The Week November 28

Kazuo Matsui is returning to Japan next season and will be playing for the Eagles. Here's one of his Calbee cards (#128) from 2003, his last season in Japan: